Three years ago today Jose Bautista got his first (and second) hit as a Blue Jay. We had picked up Jose in a trade with the Pirates on August 21, 2008. He didn't make the greatest first impression, appearing in 6 games before getting his first hit. Someone had started a Jose Bautista Sucks Facebook page. I found it because they linked to our page. I didn't understand why it would link to us as I didn't think we were being particularly rough on the guy. My memory is that we were sort of happy with the trade, in a 'this is a meaningless trade' sort of way. Trading a marginal prospect catcher for a backup 3B/pinch hitter, with a little bit of power, seemed to be a good thing. Not that we figured he'd turn out to be the best hitter in baseball.
Anyway, Jose singled in the 7th inning of our game against Yankees, driving in a run. Before the single we were down 6-2, but he was part of a 3 run rally that made it a 1 run game. Then in 8th Jose got his second Blue Jay hit, driving in Vernon Wells with our tying run. Gregg Zaun then drove in the go ahead run.
Scott Downs pitched a scoreless 8th and B.J. Ryan gave up a hit and a walk in the 9th but closed it out for his 25th save of the season, getting Brandon League his first win of the year. John Parrish (remember him) started and wasn't good, giving up 4 runs in 4 innings of work. Brian Tallet took over for him and gave up 2 more runs.
Bautista played 21 games for the Jays that season and finished with a .214/.237/.411 line in 21 games with us, but Cito saw something he liked in Jose and you know the rest of the story.